Description
Book SynopsisResearching violence and conflict can be challenging for a variety of reasons, including security risks to researchers and informants, restricted or lack of access to informants and field sites, and poor reliability of official data. Traditional methodological approaches may need to be adapted, and new methods may be called for. In addition, such research carries ethical challenges about representation of informants and information and possible use of the research for harmful ends. This book, drawing on research conducted throughout Africa in conflict zones and other insecure environments, considers the everyday dilemmas researchers face. It provides essential contributions to ongoing challenging debates about the use of alternative and mixed methods in social science research.
Trade Review'Besides the Introduction, the contributions by Doná, Hammond, and Wienia stand out, especially their approaches to silence. Silence can mean complicity or resistance, a calm before the storm, a cultural expression of self-censorship, or self-censorship on the part of the researcher. These critical reflections illustrate how method encompasses our access to the field and our actions in it, but also how we reflect on our experiences, and how we analytically order and shape them into ethnographic representations. This is one of the strengths of the volume – and it could have been spelled out more explicitly. The questions and reflections raised here are relevant beyond an African context. However, restricting the focus to Africa makes this publication a timely contribution to debates on African social change and how we engage in it'. Jacob Rasmussen, Rehabilitation and Research Centre for Torture Victims and Roskilde University, in 'African Affairs' July 2012
Table of ContentsCONTENTS Acknowledgements ............................................................................ vii Navigating the Terrain of Methods and Ethics in Conflict Research ..... 1 Johan Pottier, Laura Hammond and Christopher Cramer Researching Conflict in Africa: A Researcher’s Account of Ife-Modakeke, South-Western Nigeria ...... 23 Olajide O. Akanji Researching Children and Violence in Evolving Socio-Political Contexts ...... 39 Giorgia Doná Four Layers of Silence: Counterinsurgency in Northeastern Ethiopia ... 61 Laura Hammond Uncertain Ethics: Researching Civil War in Sudan ..................... 79 Sharon E. Hutchinson ‘From Nation to Family’: Researching Gender and Sexuality ..... 95 Danai Mupotsa Cooperative Ethics as a New Model for Cultural Research on Peace and Security ... 111 Derek B. Miller and Ron Scollon Hidden Agendas in Conflict Research: Informants’ Interests and Research Objectivity in the Niger Delta ... 137 Ukoha Ukiwo Silence and authoritative speech in post-violence northern Ghana .. 155 Martijn Wienia List of Contributors ........................................................................... 175 Index .................................................................................................... 1
